Triple Crown Horse Race

BELMONT STAKES. 131st running. Run as ninth race on June 5, 1999 card at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. Distance of race: 1 1/2 miles. Purse: $1,000,000. Value to winner: $600,000. Second: $200,000. Third: $100,000. Fourth: $60,000. Fifth: $30,000. * Scratched--none 3 6--LEMON DROP KID61.5026.0010.60 2 2--VISION AND VERSE44.4017.00 1 4--CHARISMATIC3.60 Time--23.79, 47.60, 1.12.08, 1.36.57, 2.01.90, 2.27.88. Clear & Fast. Winner--b.c.3 Kingmambo--Charming Lassie.

From Baltimore The race that exists to further the drama of a Triple Crown pursuit will load 14 horses into the starting gate shortly before 3:30 p.m. Pacific time Saturday. They will break, under partly cloudy skies, and all eyes in the 136th Preakness will be on No. 11, Animal Kingdom. The Kentucky Derby winner, trained by Graham Motion and ridden by John Velazquez, can make lots of people in the sport happy. Nothing short of Zenyatta stirs the public pot over horse racing like a Triple Crown contender.

When Kent Desormeaux chased--and eventually broke--Chris McCarron's record by winning 598 races in 1989, he rode frequently at Belmont Park. Based in Maryland, Desormeaux, only 19, went everywhere in the interest of piling up wins, and almost every Monday and Tuesday he found himself in action at Belmont.

BELMONT STAKES. 131st running. Run as ninth race on June 5, 1999 card at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. Distance of race: 1 1/2 miles. Purse: $1,000,000. Value to winner: $600,000. Second: $200,000. Third: $100,000. Fourth: $60,000. Fifth: $30,000. * Scratched--none 3 6--LEMON DROP KID61.5026.0010.60 2 2--VISION AND VERSE44.4017.00 1 4--CHARISMATIC3.60 Time--23.79, 47.60, 1.12.08, 1.36.57, 2.01.90, 2.27.88. Clear & Fast. Winner--b.c.3 Kingmambo--Charming Lassie.

Barry Irwin is convinced there's going to be no Triple Crown sweep by Real Quiet. "We're going to shock the world Saturday," Irwin said Thursday after 13 horses were entered for the 130th Belmont Stakes. Trainer Bob Baffert, whose Real Quiet has won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, has stopped short of predicting victory for his colt, but Irwin, one of the owners of the 30-1 shot Thomas Jo, is predicting a win. Thomas Jo is not one of the horses Baffert feels Real Quiet has to beat.

Visa USA said it renewed its sponsorship of the Triple Crown, making it the preferred card at Churchill Downs, Pimlico Race Course and Belmont Park, where Charismatic will attempt to become the 12th triple crown winner on Saturday. Financial terms weren't disclosed. . . . Publicis, a French advertising agency that's been on a shopping spree lately, acquired a 49% stake in Chicago-based Burrell Communications, a black-owned agency and specialist in advertising to minorities.

Immediately after Real Quiet's photo-finish loss to Victory Gallop in the Belmont Stakes last Saturday, jockey Kent Desormeaux blamed himself for the defeat. Only inches separated owner Mike Pegram and trainer Bob Baffert's colt not only from the Triple Crown, but $5.6 million--$600,000 for winning Saturday and a $5-million bonus for winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont.

Trainer Bob Baffert, still without that elusive first Belmont Stakes win, felt that Charismatic's early pressure on Silverbulletday took his filly out of the race Saturday. Chris Antley, riding Charismatic, was never far behind Silverbulletday and jockey Jerry Bailey. "I didn't think he would do that," Baffert said. "I figured somebody was going to be close, but Jerry said he was with her the whole way. They would not let her take a breather. Our only advantage was to go out [front].

For the third consecutive year, the Belmont Stakes began with thunder and ended with a thud, this time 29-1 longshot Lemon Drop Kid waking up on the right day while the Triple Crown aspirant, Charismatic, struggled home third and suffered a career-ending injury.

Trainer Bob Baffert, still without that elusive first Belmont Stakes win, felt that Charismatic's early pressure on Silverbulletday took his filly out of the race Saturday. Chris Antley, riding Charismatic, was never far behind Silverbulletday and jockey Jerry Bailey. "I didn't think he would do that," Baffert said. "I figured somebody was going to be close, but Jerry said he was with her the whole way. They would not let her take a breather. Our only advantage was to go out [front].

For the third consecutive year, the Belmont Stakes began with thunder and ended with a thud, this time 29-1 longshot Lemon Drop Kid waking up on the right day while the Triple Crown aspirant, Charismatic, struggled home third and suffered a career-ending injury.

Twenty-six years earlier, the tears came sooner for Laddie Dance. Along with wife Jeanne Vance, he owned a share in Secretariat, purchased when owner Penny Chenery syndicated the colt after her father's death. Watching perhaps the greatest single performance by a thoroughbred in the 1973 Belmont Stakes was too much for Dance, a retired horse auctioneer. He broke down even before Secretariat finished off a 31-length victory. "I didn't see the finish because I was crying," he said.

Visa USA said it renewed its sponsorship of the Triple Crown, making it the preferred card at Churchill Downs, Pimlico Race Course and Belmont Park, where Charismatic will attempt to become the 12th triple crown winner on Saturday. Financial terms weren't disclosed. . . . Publicis, a French advertising agency that's been on a shopping spree lately, acquired a 49% stake in Chicago-based Burrell Communications, a black-owned agency and specialist in advertising to minorities.

Immediately after Real Quiet's photo-finish loss to Victory Gallop in the Belmont Stakes last Saturday, jockey Kent Desormeaux blamed himself for the defeat. Only inches separated owner Mike Pegram and trainer Bob Baffert's colt not only from the Triple Crown, but $5.6 million--$600,000 for winning Saturday and a $5-million bonus for winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont.

From his vantage point in the box seats Saturday at Belmont Park, Bob Baffert saw Victory Gallop charging down the stretch a short time before Kent Desormeaux did and a long time before Real Quiet did. "No," Baffert cried. "No, no, no, no." An eternity later, while waiting for the stewards to study the photo and declare a winner in the Belmont Stakes, the trainer tried to console his young daughter, whispering hopefully in her ear, "We got it. Yeah, we got it." He was right the first time.

For most of the last two decades, the last race in the Triple Crown series has been little more than the eighth or the ninth at Belmont. But all of that changes today, thanks to a metallic gray colt who has flagged the attention of even the most blase New Yorkers. Just when the Belmont Stakes seemed to have taken a one-way ticket to Palookaville--crowds the last three years have barely averaged 40,000--Silver Charm has entered the life of the beleaguered New York Racing Assn.

Believe, if you will, that Silver Charm is only an easy jog from winning today's Belmont Stakes and racing's Triple Crown. But before reaching for your wallet, pull on your boots. Clomp though the mud and flies of the Hollywood Park stable area. Stop at Barn 60, find a guy in blue jeans carrying a shovel. Tell him you want to see a man about a dog. The man is trainer Jack Van Berg. The dog is a 3-year-old Australian shepherd, crippled by shoulder problems, born with a white eye.

When Victory Gallop was a young horse, one of his playful games was to knock out every lightbulb that was put in his stall. "He just kept doing it," said his former trainer, Mary Eppler. "Finally we just didn't put any more bulbs in there." The Canadian-bred colt was up to his old tricks Saturday. He turned out the lights on another Triple Crown bid by trainer Bob Baffert, beating Real Quiet by a head bob in the $1-million Belmont Stakes.